Govts to stand firm on shark nets

Reporter: Sean Murphy

For more than 60 years, surfers at Australia's most popular beaches have taken to the water safe in the knowledge that special nets have been set beyond the breaking waves to deter sharks. But conservation lobby groups argue that for every shark caught in the nets, 35 harmless marine creatures are endangered.

Their pressure has persuaded both Queensland and New South Wales Governments to order environmental impact studies of their shark netting programs. But both states insist that whatever the result of the studies, the nets will stay.

Sean Murphy reports.

DAVID BUTCHER, WORLD WIDE FUND FOR NATURE: You've got to remember, when you enter their habitat there is a danger, but it doesn't mean to say you should eliminate them because of that.

JIM LUMB, SHARK CONTRACTOR: What price do you put on a human life? If you're stopping at one person in NSW from being eaten by a shark, then the program is worth any penny that's being spent on it.

SEAN MURPHY: It's an early morning ritual that takes place on nearly 50 beaches from Newcastle to Wollongong. Like sharks themselves, beach netting has been largely hidden from public view for more than 60 years.

JIM LUMB: The idea is to stop the sharks from setting up a territory. We're not out sort of to catch the sharks, it's just a matter of stopping them from getting to the beaches and when you put the meshing in place, it acts as a barrier.

Sometimes they see the mesh and sometimes it's not there so they just don't come to that area anymore.

KERRY O'BRIEN: Jim Lumb has been netting Sydney's southern beaches for 16 years but his livelihood is now under threat.

A Land and Environment Court decision is forcing NSW Fisheries to reassess the environmental impact of shark meshing and conservationists are determined to have it banned.

NICOLE BEYNON, HUMAN SOCIETY INTERNATIONAL: When you're taking out top predators from the ecosystem you don't know what the impacts are going to be on the ecosystem as a whole and there can be some quite serious consequences.

DAVID BUTCHER: We see shark meshing as a pretty inappropriate way of addressing a problem and also one that is a key threatening process for a whole suite of other animals.

SEAN MURPHY: The NSW Fisheries Department will call for public submissions in about three months and is not expected to report to Government till next year.

But already, it's saying shark meshing is here to stay, regardless of what evidence emerges.

STEVE DUNN, DIRECTOR, NSW FISHERIES: We're committed to maintaining the beach shark meshing program, obviously to ensure bather safety, it has been in place since 1937 and we haven't had a fatal attack on a Sydney beach since shark meshing started.

SEAN MURPHY: Well, why have an environmental assessment if you have already made your mind up?

STEVE DUNN: If we do an environmental impact statement, that allows us to look at all the impacts that we are having and make sure that we ameliorate those impacts that we don't want to occur.

SEAN MURPHY: In July last year, a southern right whale and its calf were trapped in nets off Surfers Paradise. The baby drowned, and shortly after, the Queensland Government announced a review of its shark control program.

Critics have long argued that for every shark captured, 35 other marine creatures are caught in shark nets. They say whales, dolphins, dugongs, turtles and stingrays die needlessly in shark nets.

But both the Queensland and NSW Governments maintain the risks are minimal and manageable.

BADEN LANE, MANAGER, QLD SHARK CONTROL PROGRAM: I don't like playing on small numbers but we take 3.7 turtles per year. I mean, you know, that's over the last five years and we talk about dolphins, there's less than 80 a year get captured in the program.

I guess that's the balance, or the position, that the community has to take - that we have to put up with these small numbers of by-catch dying or human beings.

NEWSREADER: It was 6:30am and the popular Cottesloe Beach was already crowded with swimmers when the shark attacked.

SEAN MURPHY: After a fatal attack at Perth's Cottesloe Beach in November 1999, the West Australian Government formed an expert committee to examine the best means of protecting its most poplar beaches. It recommended against shark nets.

ROD LENANTON, WA FISHERIES: I think people have reacted fairly favourably to the introduction of the measures that have been introduced over this summer.

SEAN MURPHY: The West Australian Fisheries Department is also collaborating with an Adelaide-based company, which has developed portable electronic devices now being used by commercial divers.

Next summer the department hopes to trial new enhanced technology capable of protecting whole beaches.

ROD LENANTON: We'll be involved in actually, I guess, monitoring the behaviour of the sharks in relation to the introduction of these sort of devices off a beach. Really taking advantage of our knowledge of the ecology and biology of the sharks.

NEWSREEL: This is the sound that clears the surf. Along Australia's coastline, bathers hurry from the water when the shark alarm sounds. Somewhere out there a killer is lurking.

But conservationists admit even proof that shark attacks are highly unlikely, with or without nets, will not make their campaign to have shark meshing banned any easier.

DAVID BUTCHER, WORLD WIDE FUND FOR NATURE: I would doubt it very much. Folklore and paranoia and politics are usually the things that drive these types of activities.

But what we'll be looking at is classification of this as a threatening process for a whole suite of other animals.

SEAN MURPHY: Sceptical about the Queensland and NSW Governments' commitment to properly assessing its scientific evidence, both the Worldwide Fund for Nature and the Humane Society International will pressure the Federal Government to honour international environmental laws.

NICOLA BEYNON: We submitted a similar nomination about five or six years ago and it was rejected. I think it's a politically sensitive nomination and the scientists can be a little bit nervous about recommending to the Minister to remove the nets.

But also we've got an advantage now in that the federal biodiversity laws have been reformed and it's now actually easier to meet the criteria. We think we've got a good chance this time.

JIM LUMB: I feel that within a certain period of time the sharks will learn they're not there, they will come in and eventually there will be attacks like there was before the meshing program started and then who will be to blame?